Beneath Maguiresbridge Drumlin
Archived: 15 September 2026
Around 31,633 BCE, Ireland lay in an unstable Late Pleistocene interval before the Last Glacial Maximum. Evidence cannot reconstruct a single year or island-wide landscape, but sediments at Derryvree in Fermanagh record freshwater wetlands between ice advances, supporting tundra-like vegetation and insects. Other sites confirm episodic ice-free conditions. Castlepook Cave in Cork preserves a long-accumulated fauna including mammoth, giant deer, reindeer, predators and smaller cold-adapted animals. A cut-marked reindeer bone may indicate Upper Palaeolithic butchery, but human presence remains unproven without associated tools or settlement evidence. The record depicts environmental change, wildlife and possible transient human access, not named societies.